There is, of course, only one answer.

To be clear, Dionysus isn't a patron god. Like, she's not offering oblations only to him, this is a temple to all the gods, which is what a ship needs, because otherwise gods get pissy and ships get piece-y-d.

But she made a promise. That was the deal, right? She got out of this--somehow, miraculously, godsped--and in the new heart of the growing acropolis, Dyssia works with quiet intensity. It's…

It's like, if she says she's focusing, that gives the wrong impression? It's not that she's shutting out the world.

It's that the world, in this instant, is made entirely of haze. Incense, half sweet, half noxious. The grit of mortar under her claws, a pleasant warmth sitting in her gut, a burning wearing away in her throat. She works not like a machine, but like a being entranced.

What is she working towards? Here, she has the attention of a god, purple pressing in from all directions.

That's the question bouncing around her mind, really, the one she's murmuring under her breath with every brick, every sacrifice, every offering. She knows what the world looks like under Apollo. Or at least, you know, under people who think they're doing what Apollo wants, and he hasn't disabused them of the notion yet?

Apollo is a god of prophecy. Dionysus offers mad sights.

Visit her with a dream of what's at the end of this road. What does Dionysus's perfect world look like?

Click click click, the sound of one claw tapping echoes through the mostly empty chamber. Mosaic's spine is curled forward as if thoughts were supposed to climb up its slope into her brain. Her ears twitch constantly at each new little shift in Ohm's rotations, trying to steal extra information from the advisor-machine's apparent mood and attitude. Her eyes roam about the room in the hopes that shadows and flecks of dust or speckled bits of light held answers for her if she could only just perceive them from the right angle.

It takes her a long time to do anything else. She scarcely breathes for fear of interrupting the information stream around her. But at long last, she nods. The spell breaks, and her posture relaxes slightly once again.

"I'm gonna have to smack a bunch of Ceronian heads together before this is over, I see. I wonder if the smaller ones are any different about this stuff? Guess it doesn't matter. No, I can't just put them all in leadership positions across the ship, that's the same as putting them above everyone else from the start. I don't really want to break them up either, but I could use their examples for the others. But that doesn't... fuck. This would be so much simpler of Gemini had any interest in being their alpha. But she won't. And I can't ask."

She can feel the rings spinning up to argue with her. Even having only been in the same room as Ohm for a few minutes, she can already hear his voice in her head gently admonishing her and working through the problem again as if leading a child to the end of a school problem until she finally gets it right.

Her tail flicks in preemptive irritation.

"I'll write a list of names. You and I will assign their positions across the ship together, until I am satisfied. But when I gather the ship together to explain everything, I'll ask for volunteers first. This will tell us who's the most interested in helping before they know the rewards for work. Living in Beri, everything was always easier if you could keep the mood up. That's what I'd like to do here. We're building a city here essentially, right? Then the first step is to build one I would want to live in."

Howl From The Ashes was defeated near the end of the Tharassian Interregnum. Plundering Fang liked telling Little Ember the story, emphasizing how her legacy was that of a failure. That was a joke of a bloodline meant for little bitches who would never, ever lead the pack. And that much was true! Howl From The Ashes never led her pack, except by example. She was not a great leader of wolves, and when she was defeated, it was because she was standing alone.

Goldie told her the most important part of the story, though. Howl was defeated, yes. It took a dedicated pack-of-packs thirteen hours to overcome her, fighting alone for the glory of her alpha. Howl was untouchable, moving in negative space, flicking nets back at their casters, flinging spears through vehicles meant to run her down, trailing trophies in her wake. The challenge she presented ground the invasion of the Minosiam to a halt. None could pass her by.

She was paraded on Akhol in lieu of her alpha. She never flinched, and it is said (by Goldie) that no one could look her in the eye. She was offered a seat at the right hand of the Ceronian who would, by the end of the Interregnum, restore the Shogunate— and her refusal saw her spend fifteen years chained to his throne.

Fifteen years, until her Alpha struck in a heist which stole away only one treasure, and one treasure alone. To this day, her blood is a watchword for loyalty, for skill, and for romance. Nothing breaks the daughters of Howl From The Ashes, no matter how low they fall. And that is what Plundering Fang tried so hard to hide from Little Ember, and instead quickened in her blood.

---

“Like, why don’t you do it?”

An off-hand question, tossed out triflingly. But it latched onto Ember like a leech. She watched the stars play on the vaulted ceilings of the Plousios,, almost lulled by the serenading of far-off songbirds and the sound of repair crews (of which, oddly, there were many— but surely it was the hiccup of the hearth needing to be rekindled). She tried to hide from it, tried to convince herself that she could back Plundering Fang, instead. That she could be quiet and loyal. But still the burden lies in front of her, and no matter how she turned, there it was.

Letting either of them seize control of the Silver Divers would disrupt operations aboard the Plousios. Who is Sagetip but an untrustworthy vizier? Who is Plundering Fang but an unwise steward? Either one of them would set the course of Mosaic’s ship straight towards disaster. And there was no other viable candidate but someone who had a direct line to Mosaic, who had the friendship of not only the former Alpha but also a leashed Magi, who was— recently?— first aboard the ship.

True, some might think her strange, giving her ring odd looks, whispering behind her back of enchantment. Some might point out that she is descended from Howl From The Ashes, and doomed to lose in the end. And some might just be loyal already to another candidate.

And yet there is enough for her to begin planning her opening strikes. Carefully, of course— not to disrupt repairs or the operation of the luxuries of the ship…

Mosaic!

The Omn device is a creature of Empire. It understands power and it understands how to accumulate it. There is a science to this; to the breaking of kinship groups, to the establishment of ideologies, to the manipulation of ambition. It wouldn't even be difficult. In a small crisis, power flows towards the centre and it can help you be that centre. Each piece of advice has it's own swirling logic, each decision naturally implies multiple other decisions, the Imperial structure of government has a dread logic all of its own that makes it a natural resting point.

But it doesn't argue if it's pushed back at. You want to do things another way? Well, that's just a fact of the universe now as far as Omn is concerned, so now it's time to follow through on the implications of that idea. And that's the space you enter now, a strange world of glimpses into future problems. Do things this way and this social group will accumulate power. Do things that way and this group will be marginalized. Allow this freedom and watch as an organization emerges to exploit it. In the end it all comes down to who has power. If anyone except you has power, then you don't know what they're going to do with it.

So what is the distribution of power that Mosaic allows here? Will she empower community leaders, appointed praetors, individuals? Will she favour the military or the artists? Who rules in the city that she wants to live in?

Ember!

... and immediately set back because neither of your rivals is bound by consideration for the ship. The rival packs form and move to begin seizing centers of power. Pundering Fang's forces spread widely and begin administering the ship's agricultural systems, offering tempting feasts to draw people into her system of patronage. Sagetip concentrates around urban centers of power and prestige - the temple deck, the Engine, the Bridge. Each candidate only has a few committed loyalists, the rest are fair-weather supporters drawn in by speeches and promises, but they have planted their banners and are seen to be leading even as the world grinds to a halt around them. If this goes on too long, as well it might without your intervention, the Slitted might affect enough repairs to give chase.

When it is time to enter the contest, how do you?

Dyssia!

Perfect.

The Endless Azure Skies are perfect. Through genius design and relentless willpower they have outlasted the death of stars. Even the wounds are part of the structure; even these wounds will heal. A distributed organizing principle, an idea with no centre and no end. It is the end goal for a civilization, and the civilization works backwards towards it. Thought, will, action, result.

It's a thing of logic. It's a thing of beauty. It's fucking passe. Beauty has simple rules. Smooth, symmetric, simple. Geometric shapes floating in space, everything the same colour, everything so predictable your brain goes numb. The Endless Azure Skies is a project of mathematics. You can make the universe fit into mathematics, if you'd like. Sometimes if you're quick you can even do music purely through mathematics.

It's a different kind of music to the kind you make when you do three lines of coke off a broken bathroom mirror and step out onto stage and just kind of fucking feel it, you feel me?

There's no plan here, and the fact that you even asked that shows just how deep the Skies has it's claws in you. There's just vibes. Sometimes you'll be so overcome with love that you can tell a perfect stranger that they're your best friend, and that's true, and sometimes you'll be so blinded with rage that you'll punch a perfect stranger in the mouth over a peanut and that's true too. Don't read into it, who gives a shit? If you even start doing that the vibes will have moved on and you'll be doing archaeology on one specific musical note. That's no way to live, get the fuck out of here, what do you think living is?

Doesn't even need to be dramatic as all that either. Imagine getting up in the morning and having no idea what the fuck you're going to do today. When was the last time that happened to you? Don't answer that, if it's not today then you're still not noticing what's happening around you right fucking now.

Dolce!

"Surely that doesn't apply here," said the Architect absently. "We are the same entity, after all!"
"Then re-establish the connection!" shouted the Emissary.
"No." said the Architect. "Aha, no, yes, good point, Mr. Dolce, I see what you're saying now."

The drones descended on the metal, ripping and tearing. At the end they have produced a crude bed, a single chair, and a twist of metal to produce a roof. Nearby was a large circle on the ground with an X through the centre.

"Well, this seems like a solution everyone can be happy with!" said the Architect brightly. "You can live here under the laws of hospitality in this cute little house I have built, with all the food and fire you desire. Live here for ten years. A hundred years! And whenever you get bored of it, just step into this handy little circle and I'll delete you and repurpose your chassis for something useful." And then, in a reproachful tone of voice, "You know, the loss of specialized materials in your construction represents a 14 hour delay on the Schedule. Just so you're aware of what your extended existence is costing us."

The Architect's eye spun back to Dolce, leaving behind a catatonic Emissary. "There! The Gods are satisfied, don't you think?"

This is a labor of days. A full week or more might pass, she has little way to track it. Mosaic does not sleep. She hardly eats or drinks, and when she does she curses like a fiend at the imposition. While she is busy crafting her vision for the future, the ship is continuing on and others are stamping theirs on top of it. Every hour she wastes is another where a possibility might close off forever and a figure or a group will have entrenched themselves so thoroughly that it would take a war of conquest to dislodge them.

But she has no training. The careful consideration of the ramifications of each of her ideas is the only weapon she has, so she wields it with all of her might. It hurts her pride to hear so many problems with all of her ideas. If she does one thing, somebody will ruin it. If she works to counter that, another group will rise up in their place. If she crushes both, she has given up the freedom she was trying to build into her city in the first place.

Power. Power, power, power, power, power. All of it for her. It must all rest on her shoulders, or the baser instincts of those around her will crush her dreams. Everything must be perfect, must be precise, must follow her instructions as she gives them without questioning them or everyone will die in the terrible, yawning maw of space. This ship will return to food for Poseidon, just as she had found it. That's why. That's why, that's why, that's why!!

She hears a voice echo in her mind. A voice she has never heard before, a voice that does not belong to anyone she knows. It is stern and heavy with expectations, but at the same time it is warm and caring. It is iron and it is theatrical and it sets her heart on fire even as it soothes her. Is this what it sounds like to have a mother? Could it be?

For an Emperor to be strong, her citizens must be weak. For her citizens to be strong, the Emperor must be weak. Too much in one direction and the people crumble to dust under the heavy heel of the throne. Too much in the other and everything is swept up in the tide and there is nobody left at the top to defend the masses when crisis comes to threaten them. And so the wise Emperor must dance between the Scylla and Charybdis of tyranny and --

Mosaic yawns, and the voice disappears. A moment of delirious blinking, and she realizes that it was actually her voice all along. She is... tired. Repurposing the lesson of Zeus to justify her ideas. Or to shape them, if she's feeling charitable. She is not. She is not an Emperor, and this is not Empire. She's such an idiot for wishing her projections meant anything at all. Her heart feels hollow. Is this loneliness? Fatigue? But still, the words resonate. And she is so close. She claws the sleep from her eyes and returns to her list.

In the end, the city that Mosaic wants to live in turns out to be a lot like herself. She does not favor the military over the arts, but neither does she shun it. She does not divide duties to split up power groups like the Silver Divers, but she does arrange them to mingle. She dilutes responsibilities down a chain of command until a common worker can handle most of their day without input from anybody, but she establishes a list of lieutenants that she trusts above everyone to be her voice in the sectors they excel in, with instructions that they each select someone else to perform these same duties under them.

It gives her a council of experts from every walk of life and empowers that council to make decisions on its own, even override her own authority if they all agree with each other. And what authority she gives herself to wield is good for very little. Mosaic positions herself as the principle solver of issues that crop up. A single mind that can react quickly when such things come up, a mediator and a protector when these things are necessary, the one who will come running to fix a broken gear in her machine no matter where it turns up.

The whole thing is fragile. If she's not up to the task of handling everything as it breaks, it will all collapse more or less instantly. But it feels fair. The workers most punished by their work will be the most rewarded for it. Tasks are assigned that call for specialization, but the emphasis of the social structure and living arrangements encourage constant intermingling. She leaves room open for innovation, when someone other than herself or Omn present an idea that could improve things for everybody, and she leaves even wider room for the possibility that the idea could come from literally anybody on board.

Her city is a patchwork. A place of art, a place of labor, a place of comfort, and a place of discipline. A patchwork that puts herself at the center, not so that she can benefit from the flow of resources, but so she can best do what she has always tried to and lift everybody up onto her shoulders when their legs are giving out. It's a fussy and meticulous vision that's commanding and servile in the same breath.

It's a place to start at any rate. Fuck, she is starving. How long has it been since she's had a decent meal?

Don’t wince. Don’t frown. Don’t smile. Don’t shrink. Do thhe job. Expect nothing back. Let their praise prove their graciousness. Speak when spoken to. His knowledge is theirs. Give what is asked for. Do not tarry. Do not stutter. Speak. Speak.

“It would be presumptuous of me to speak for them, Great Lord.” He deflects smoothly. His body remains bowed. Only his mouth moves. “I can say you have surely met the requirements of what is owed.”

He could count the jagged points in the ramshackle house. The metal ripped in chunks as it was pulled on the floor. Each scream of metal yielding rings in his ears. Below it all, the hum of drones. In the walls. In the floor. All around them. Waiting.

“...all you could have left to fear is the potential reproach of miserly treatment. If you were to allow them some limited freedom to move about your vast home, then no accusation of poor hospitality could stand against you. In this matter, you would be safe.”

Ringing. Humming. Waiting.

Fuck, it's been.

It's been.

The fact that she can't remember how long it's been is probably a bad sign of how long it's been.

Because on the one hand, it's like. Sure, she's had time? Right? Part of the perks of being an Azura is that the system is, you know, designed around making sure you don't notice how much time goes into making sure you have time? To the point that once you notice it, it's, wow, it's a lot, and how didn't you notice that before?

Actually a lot of things are like that, now that she thinks about it? It's the point is that you're not supposed to see it. It's supposed to be a background radiation of heinous shit, invisible in its omnipresence.

Like, not wrong? Not wrong at all, in that even now, even this far from home, this far from everything, she still carries home with her like… Like an anchor? Except the anchor is actually everywhere because it's in her head and--

But also she's spent the past few months learning that you can't not plan? Not planning is a good way to get yourself taken over by Pix, or for you to find out that whoops, these two species aren't compatible and are crafting their own civilization out of bones?

Honestly, not sure what she expected. 'S illuminating, innit, but there's a reason that Dionysus isn't the god of kingship.

There's gotta be an in between. She's just gotta find out what it is, or, you know, failing that, make it.

Stars, scattered across a high ceiling.

When Ember led her friends (including, notably, Goldie and Taurus, and also Magus Fussyfangs) into the Observation Hall, she was the only one who believed that it would still work. Surely the old cartographic wonder wouldn’t work at all— surely its lenses would be clouded and useless, its walls no longer able to shift and illustrate, its shrine to Poseidon bereft of all holiness, nothing but a waterlogged ruin.

But no. Not with a little bit of polish, some work to realign lenses, a favor owed the Azura Knight to borrow an Atlas Thalassa from her ship, and one of Little Ember’s visions was realized for everyone else to see: a room where the Endless Azure Skies were on full display. It’s one thing to go and party with Plundering Fang, but it’s another to press your hands on the wall and watch as representations of a hundred planets blossom, brightly colored, fern-curls of nebulas wrapping around them. Draw them down, spread your fingers wide, watch as the figures of the gods on the walls hold a representation of a planet between them, stretching from wall to wall, until it’s too much to fully take in.

Sagetip can have her temple. For now, at least; Fussyfangs is drawing up plans for how to cut Sagetip off, and then Ember can begin petitioning the gods on behalf of the pack properly. But for now, Ember is satisfied with painstakingly repairing the shrine to Poseidon, wreathed in detritus found in odd corners of the ship, crowned with crabs, surrounded by offerings by Ceronians wishing for safe voyage to a hundred hundred worlds.

And Poseidon has responded, hasn’t he? Hasn’t he just.

The Plousios!

An Imperial-era warship. They don't build them like this any more.

It takes almost week to realize the ship is being harassed by system patrol craft. These are mere ants, chemical powered in system interceptors, but like ants they've formed a column towards the carcass of a dead horse and in a constant flowing stream they ship across what primitive chemical and atomic warheads they can muster. It is instinct that drives these responders more than the instructions of the Crystal Knight - this obsolete species of voidborne fighter pilots, once a terror of the Skies, now reduced to traffic cops firing their pistols at an aircraft carrier.

It's only when an outer bulkhead finally collapses after what might have been the fiftieth atomic warhead and floods a recreation deck with void and voidcrabs (who immediately set to war with the ocean crabs already in residence) that the problem reaches the command decks of the Plousios. Getting any sort of understanding as to what's happening is extremely difficult; the shrine to the God of War is not only in total disrepair but is so old it shows the historical figures of Athena and Ares, rather than the modern Minerva and Mars. Useless in other words, the ship is blind and deaf, you might as well be praying to Thor. So despite the total mismatch in size the Plousios is at the mercy of the system patrol craft as they work away with the bloody-minded determination of ants.

The leadership contest of the Silver Divers has immediately aligned around this problem. Whoever can solve the problem of these swarming fighter craft will be the alpha. Mosaic's light touch means that both Plundering Fang and Sagetip are empowered to take their own methods - Sagetip in reconstructing a defensive ELF array, Plundering Fang in reconsecrating the temple deck.

The plan that remains is the simplest and the most daring: To board one of the ancient, rusted Plovers and go out to fight the enemy directly. Mosaic, here you are king and lady, Ember, you are knight and champion, Dyssia, you are commander and wingman. You stand on the launch deck in the regalia that suits your status as maintenance crews roll out these relics of a brighter age, plugging in cable-leashes that will transmit the Engine's power to the war machines over hundreds of kilometers. It is a moment for salutes, oaths of moments, vows and salutes and promises.

Dolce!

"Nonsense!" snapped the Architect, enormous eye narrowing. "This is not a roadside tavern, this is the greatest remaining monument to the glories of the digital age and an essential component in the reconstruction of the galaxy!"

The eye-screen shifted and flowed, a trillion tiny lights changing colours to show a galaxy wounded, scarred, bleeding. The bloody remnant of a divine spear run through it's heart.

"Over fifteen hundred habitable planets destroyed!" cried the Architect. "Shattered to pieces! Asteroid formations! The galaxy has shrunk and no life will ever bloom there again - unless I make it so! It is my job to haul the wreckage, ignite the cores, form the continents and the plate tectonics and dust the surface with life! And in between me and this most laudable of goals, itself in service to the Gods themselves, is a shattered remnant of civilization who thinks that I am a mere tractor that they can use to plough the fields if only they can find the correct key! You come here waving the flag of Zeus crying, hospitality, hospitality, and expect to bring this compromised creature into the most delicate of sanctums? If I open those gates to you then I shall in the course of weeks be flooded by every spy, assassin, technomancer and saboteur in the galaxy! No! You get food, shelter, and the termination circle until such a time as you decide that you are done and kindly fuck off to your next destination."

The Plover shines like a piece of Olympus granted to Ceron, resplendent on the black-and-gold marble of the launch deck. It is not strange to only have a handful; everyone knows that exclusivity is a marker of taste and quality. A knife is thrust through her belt as a last resort; a blade as large as a statue sits ready for the Plover and her pilot. The fools don't know what they do, daring the anger of this war-machine, this great and terrible wrath that stands poised to make this flight their very last.

"I'm going to name you... hmm." Ember twists up her mouth in that little way she does, one hand on her hip, looking up at the Plover. "You do need a name. Or maybe you want to earn one? That's it, that's why. After we scatter them into the void, I'll have the right name for you. I'm Little Ember, and I'll be riding you today. Thank you for your service and your loyalty."

She waves with a clash of bangles over at her wingsnake, ears up and delighted, smile tinted coral pink by her silk. "Over here! Gosh, goodness, a real knight of the Azura! What will the terms of our wager be? Don't worry about making it particularly fair, you're doing us a service by joining me anyway. Don't underestimate me, though; even if I haven't piloted one of these before, one look and I know, I know I'm going to be good at this. I'm Little Ember, and I know you, you're Dyssia, aren't you? I haven't had the time to thank you for what you did on Bitemark, that little unpleasantness, what have you thought of the ship thus far? Beautiful, isn't it?"

It must be a stunning display, the likes of which hasn’t existed for centuries, orchestrated by one of the last living digital minds. Lights more numerous than the stars themselves, coming together to form a bespoke picture. They tell the tale of the galaxy’s doom at the point of a Spear, as told by someone old enough to have witnessed it.

A fantastic show that Dolce doesn’t see, because he still hasn’t lifted himself up from that first bow. Neither does he really know when it ends. It is long seconds before the Architect’s booming voice stops echoing through the chamber, and still the colors reflecting off the deck shift and swirl. It is a long, patient silence, a thousand opportunities for the Architect to say more, and he passes on each of them.

This, too, is a ritual. On its completion, the Royal Architect may know that he has been heard, his words have been duly considered, and the reply Dolce gives is given only by his leave.

“Great lord. I don’t know anything about assassins and technomancers. I don’t know about what it takes to put a planet back together. I don’t know very much about you. I’m just a chef from Beri. What seems like good sense to me might be a death sentence for you, and I’d never know the difference. What I do know are the stories, great lord. The tales of the gods and their doings. As many as have passed my ears, I’ve listened well, and I’ve remembered them. And those stories warn of terrible danger if you take this course of action.”

“You have all of my apologies for upsetting you. But knowing this, how can I stay silent? I do not cry for hospitality to force open your private sanctums, I speak a warning, lest some spy finds this leverage and uses it against you.”

He folds his hands. He inclines his head further. He takes the smallest step away from 20022, and closer to the eye. “Great lord, I put myself at your service in this matter. What knowledge and wisdom I have, I put at your disposal. 20022, and the host of your proofs can vouch that what I say is true: I am a simple chef from Beri. I have no training in any art beyond that of the servant and the chef. The one path open to one such as I for advancement, I lacked the necessary spirit to succeed, and left without ever receiving a number. I am Dolce; nobody of any great importance, who finds himself before you by chance, and in all likelihood will never see you again.” A harmless, humble servant. Useless and without ambition. Who just so happens to be on hand, in the midst of an unprecedented situation, when the gift of a harmless, humble, listening ear would be most welcome. Yes, it would be an audacious thing, for the Architect to confide in such a soul. Then again, what if it was so audacious that even the most wicked schemer, the most cunning malcontent, would never suspect he had done it?

Of all the places to look for the secrets of the Architect’s heart, who would ever think to look to Dolce of Beri?

“If it pleases you, great lord, then whatever you wish to speak to me, I swear never to repeat. I only ask that you speak softly, or else I may not be able to listen for long.” His ears still throb painfully from the last outburst. “And,” his nose wrinkles. Obviously out of his depth. Flailing for what little ground he can stand upon. Charming, isn’t it, to see him trying so hard at matters so above his head? “Is ‘great lord’ your preferred title? Or is there one you would like better?”

[Rolling to Speak Softly: 4 + 6 + 3 = 13 Dolce forges a Bond with the Royal Architect. Why is the Royal Architect so afraid, that he can’t even spare some extraneous rooms for the Emissary to live in?]

The sky is alight with colors. Shimmering clouds of blue and pink float in the distance, dusted with the sparkle of stars beckoning young travelers to adventure. Brilliant rivers of green ripple like giant serpents wrapping themselves across the leylines of the infinite void: where their breath mists out of their nostrils the sea turns a violent shade of purple instead.

It had been impossible until now to understand the grandness of the vessel she'd set out on. On Bitemark it was more than half in seawater when she boarded it, or else the coral growths had made it indistinguishable from the bed it had slumbered in. Walking around inside of it was misleading in its own right; the corridors were vast but winding, and her thoughts were so occupied with the people inside of it that she'd gotten no real sense of it beyond 'larger than her village'.

But now Mosaic saw her new home, and it was immense. Standing amidst these massive suits of armor in this space designed to launch them into the infinite void beyond, she could see the mouth of the Plousios at last. And from the mouth if she craned her neck she could perceive the curve of the bulkheads beyond, and the ants swarming all around it gave it something to be huge against that was not itself somehow larger. Her ship stretched to the horizon. No, it was the horizon. Infinite possibility, infinite space. Infinite.

Against it, she was less than an ant. A mote of dust, perhaps. Mosaic tosses her head back and laughs. This was her weakness. Which made it her strength. The air rumbles, the ship groans, and the floor beneath her feet vibrates in emulation of her own purrs. Blast by blast the ship shakes off its coat of sea salt crusted coral. It glitters as she watches it float free and past them.

Mosaic's hair is bound in ribbons today. Dozens of them, in every color of the Great Sea itself. She reaches behind her back and unfurls the first, the one closest to her tips, and beckons for a nearby Plover to approach. The huge machine, both a knight's armor and her mount, drops to its knee in front of her and the force of the air it disrupts billows her skirts all the way back to her tail. The bells around her neck and through her ear sing brightly.

She reaches for the wrist of the machine, and ties the ribbon fast. Another gesture, and the plover rises. She crosses the hangar to the next one, unties the next ribbon, and repeats the gesture. On a finger, around a knee, left as a tassel to flutter proudly on the entrance to the cockpit, she leaves her tokens for her champions who would be doing the work she could not afford to take onto herself. All the while her face is pulled taut in obvious discomfort: the hit to her pride is palpable. The level of trust it takes for the woman who stole a mountain to send someone else on a task is not to be underestimated or taken for granted.

She hesitates when she reaches Ember's machine. Her spine straightens as it kneels in front of her, her beloved, her champion, her best and most precious knight. She looses not another ribbon from her hair, but a delicate red and gold sash from around her waist, and fixes it to the tip of her lance. Now she is the standard bearer. Now she is the hero. Now she is marked. Mosaic nods, and turns away.

Her eyes fall on Dyssia. Another ribbon, this one a shocking green and violet, attached to a shoulder. Her glossy hair falls across her back in loose and messy curls shaped by the braids she's pulled undone to arm her knights. Her eyes gleam in gold and purple fire as she watches the woman who fell from a comet and saved her. Her thunderbolt, the gift of Zeus. This trust belongs to you as well, stranger from a strange land.

"These ribbons," her voice slices through the hangar with the precision of a blade, "Are the proof that I love you. Each of you are irreplaceable. I won't ask you to leave. I won't ask you to fight whatever it is that's buzzing around us and trying to eat our dream. Do what you want, whatever you think is best while you're out there. But you have my ribbons, and I want them back. So whatever else you do, you will return, understood? Bring these back to me. Un. Spoiled. That is my order. I will be waiting for you to fulfill it."

She addresses the room, but her eyes are locked like a sniper's onto Ember and Dyssia. These, then, are the two she trusts the least. And the most. It's the strong ones that need to be looked after most, after all. They're the most likely to do something stupid in the name of not failing. And so she ties her leash. Now go. Get your asses caught for all she cares. But don't abandon her, not ever.

She stands in the hanger, ablaze with rubies and citrines, a wash of red and orange. She is a prince among princes, war chief among war chiefs, tall and dignified and proud, and she can barely see the gently curving horizon of the ship for the enormity of her own guilt.

How had she missed the shrine?

She'd been in there! She'd been working in it for hours! At any time, if she'd looked up! If, if, if! Could have seen the shrine, could have recognized it--

Could she have seen it for what it was? Athena and Ares are ancient. Relics, barely taught except as a, you know, a historical curiosity? It's like, you don't see the things that aren't there, but she was in charge of consecrating the temple! She should have been better at seeing the things that weren't there!

It was her job, and now everyone is in danger because she didn't do it right, and it's maddening that they're all treating her as if they don't blame her for it?

It stings, just a bit--okay, a lot a bit--that she isn't in charge of fixing her own mistake. That one of the Silver Divers is leading the action there, while she's been granted a mech of her own to help lead the fight against the enemies.

Granted a token! A symbol of trust, of value, of "come back alive," of--

She shakes her head almost imperceptibly, as if to shake off the thoughts.

Gosh, it's weird to see one of these? To find one of the behemoths, the relics, the frozen statues with hermits on their heads, shrunk down in miniature? To be given it, to customize, to paint, to name--

Slowly, as if waking from a dream, she turns to Little Ember.

"Shall we say, more people defended? That's our goal, after all. We defend this ship, we defend each other, that shall be our wager."

Mosaic!

"It's hard, isn't it?" said Hera.

She stood beside you in her full panoply. An ox of gravity-bending dark matter, a peacock garbed in golden jewelry, a paper umbrella set with a ring of emeralds, a face that might launch a thousand ships. The Queen of the Gods, offset in the side of your eye as you watch the champions ride to war.

"Zeus gave you her lesson below," she said. "And you embodied it well. You did the impossible, lit up the night like a thunderbolt, and everyone followed you out of awe. And now you stand here aboard the docks and watch your lover fly away on that same thunderbolt. Today it is because you are injured. Tomorrow it will be because you are old. Zeus is glorious, to be sure, but she's never had to grow up. For a long time that frustrated me."

She stepped into your vision proper, unfolding a paper fan as she does to cover her lower face. It's an impossible stance; full of tension and also entirely comfortable; a mask of glory worn until it has become one with her.

"Today you do battle with gifts of ribbons -" she touched the peacock's head, it leaned into her hand, "- and armour." She touched the ox, it lowed softly. "The only weapons you have to bind wandering eyes and distracted minds. Do you think they will be enough?"

Ember and Dyssia!

The Cable is a magnificent invention. Through this miracle of arcane materialism the once-mighty mecha of the ancient world can persist in this liminal state as Plovers, bound to life on the Cable's life support.

The Cable is, at its most basic, an almost infinitely extendible length of thick wire that transmits energy along its length. With one plug into the Plover suit and one plug into one of the many power ledes on the exterior of the Plousios, the suit can draw on the infinite well of energy generated by the Engine. This inures it against the omnipresent danger of the Electromagnetic Flux; whereas a single short-range thunderbolt might render a chemical or plasma drive overloaded and inert, properly Cabled a Plover will experience only a short interruption.

Severed from the Cable, a Plover is vulnerable. Drawing from the Engine, a Flux strike is a splash of water on a bonfire; a hiss of steam but no real damage. Severed and relying on its own emergency batteries, a Flux strike is a splash of water on a lit match - enough to render it cold and dark. Mecha combat, then, becomes a ribbon dance, where each warrior must be constantly aware of their long tail. An enemy might dive between a Plover and its ship to sever its Cable. Expert pilots moving in unison might cause two Plovers to tangle each other on their Cables. The further away from the ship you draw the longer your vulnerable tether. You might fight as gods so long as you preserve the delicate astral thread binding you to life.

You face ten times your number. They are entirely untethered, operating entirely on their reserves so far from home, and so a single Flux strike will disable each one. They are no fools and have trained extensively for exactly this scenario, and already they scatter, charging long range energy beams and arming railguns and other primitive weapons. They will give you war, and you need to drive them off and not merely delay them. How?

Dolce!

"Of course it's not my preferred title," snaps the Royal Architect, but there's more tiredness than anger in that. "But it's what I need to move about in this society. Accepting their titles, playing by their rules, shows of obedience to the right title - you do these things and the Endless Azure Skies will have a place for you. This society can accept anything so long as you do it in the proper manner. The polite knives of assassins are a far improvement to the open warfare I suffered before I learned to play the game. And so the Royal Architect I must be."

"But I did learn to play the game and - oh, look up, you ridiculous creature," said the Architect as his vast screen shifted to digital recordings. "This was the first one, an Ikarani assassin showed up under much the same innocent disguise. Offered to decorate the exterior of one of my bulkheads. I agreed and they wove a pattern that was quite beautiful, but especially beautiful to the children of Poseidon. I spent years fighting off an unending tide of voidcrabs that wanted to mate with me before I made the connection. Slide!"

The screen changed again. "Another guest, a Diodekoi. Swore every oath of allegiance and hospitality imaginable, and then just fucking jumped from where you are standing now directly onto my processing core and started breaking everything. Have you ever tried to fight someone standing on the surface of your own brain? I wound up performing a stasis lobotomy." The cameras blinked and showed a monster of bone and talon, frozen in place atop a pile of shattered bones. "She's still there," said the Architect. "If I lose power to that section for a second she'll escape and continue her rampage."

The screen blinked back to the enormous eye. "And these are merely two. Do you understand what is meant by the existence of the Temple Assassins? They mean the defiance of every law and norm and custom. The assassin pays for their monstrosity with their suffering, death, and damned afterlife but they pay the price nevertheless. The Diodekoi did not know that she was an engine of murder until she was activated. No scans or tests I did could discover this about her. And after she was I could not stop her without great cost. You look at me and think me mighty? Fool. Let me tell you about the mighty."

"The Biomancers who sent these monsters against me did so as jokes. They challenge each other with these monsters as part of their games, testing each others reflexes and defenses, all in good humour. They express their affection in this way, coming up with ever more deranged monsters in the hopes of getting a laugh from their colleagues. They sent me these gifts as signs of respect and affection. I am beneath them, but the only thing I dread more than their friendship is their enmity."

"Oh, speaking of!" said 20022 brightly. "That's actually why I came here. I need you to transfer me to Master Biomancer Liquid Bronze aboard her flagship, The Cancellation of Florence Nightingale. There is a servitor insurrection that the sector government failed to contain and I need to co-ordinate the decommissioning."

"Enough? No, I--"

Mosaic's neck droops, and her ears along with it. With nobody to hide her injuries from anymore, the weight of her own body asserts itself immediately. It is the mark of a queen that she manages to lift herself back up when she turns to look Hera in the eye. Her answer clogs her throat, it's so heavy and hollow for the audience it needs to reach.

She clenches a fist, but carefully. And shakes her head.

"I don't want to say it in a way that implies I don't trust them," she says haltingly, "But I never feel like anything I do is enough. It's like poison in my brain. I should have had more words, a reward, a... I should be out there with them. I should be out there instead of them. On and on. No, it's not enough. Something's going to happen and I'll be left wondering which one of these inadequacies would have fixed it."

She stares out again at the vastness of space, with all of its shimmering wonders set against the impossible horizon of her ship. For the first time since she discovered the portholes and saw it with her own eyes, she can't bring herself to see the beauty of it. Every nebula hides jaws large enough to swallow planets. Every rumble of the ship is the moment its massive bulkheads split forever and dump all the people stupid enough to have believed in her into Poseidon's waiting grasp to do battle one last time with voidcrabs. It's a fitting enough end for a people who made their livelihood for so long hunting their seaborne cousins, was it not?

"It is hard," she admits, "Lifting a mountain was at least ten times easier. I only had to do that for a few minutes. If it was only a few minutes. I think I'm still carrying it. Only now if I drop it the whole world ends. Only now if I throw it, the people living on it all die. Only now..."

Her teeth clench around the words.

"I just want them to come home. Is it my fault that they're gone? Is it my fault if they don't come back?"

He listens. He raises his head, when asked. Somewhere in the proceedings, he takes a seat on the shining floor. (A risk. A hunch. How long has it been, since someone did not stand on ceremony and remained amicable? No one but 20022 is here to see, and if the Great Lord does not object, then what room does he have to complain about decorum?) He listens, and he learns, of temples, of assassins, of Biomancers, of the life of the Royal Architect, who is second only to the Shah in the Endless Azure Skies.

Before the talk is done, his hand strays from his lap, and gently pets the floor beside him. He touches the polished gold as if it were a friend’s shoulder. The Royal Architect is not the whole station, his concept of body and self must be much different than his own. This much, he knows. But perhaps the Royal Architect also knows that he knows, and that his options are rather limited here. How else can Dolce of Beri tell a digital mind that he sees the fear that grips his ancient heart? Can he say as such, in what few words he has? Can one so small offer any help against a prison of the mighty? The Architect may see this humble offering of sympathy, and take some small comfort when Dolce presses no further on his point of hospitality.

He wouldn’t be right. But he wouldn’t be entirely wrong, either. There is just more than one monster trapped here.

Can you feel him down there, Diodekoi? No, probably not. To be frank, he hopes you don’t feel anything, haven’t felt anything for a long, long time. Better to sleep, and dream of someplace better than here, than to be awake for every moment of your fate. What one god works, no other god may unwork, but perhaps, Hera, there could be room for a warm, peaceful dream? And if she dreams not, then somehow, let her feel this gentle touch through countless layers of ice, bone, and metal. Let her know that someone knows she is there, and wishes it were not so.

Thus run his silent prayers, when a voice snaps his full attention to the present.

“Decommissioning?” At once he is on his hooves. At once he is trembling to hold himself still. “My, my apologies, I, no one gave me any reports. Who’s to be decommissioned? Who’s in revolt? We left so suddenly, I didn’t see - is everyone,” The moment he touches the idea, a pit of dread opens in his stomach, and all his thoughts cling desperately to keep from being sucked into an abyss. He wills his throat to loosen, and his tongue to speak coherently. “Are they okay?”

Ember streaks across the sky like a comet, throwing caution to the winds. Or, at least, that’s how it must seem, right? But this is Ceronian pack tactics at work. Our Little Ember takes point, seemingly reckless, and any daring little crow that makes a dive for the tether is open for the teeth that follow her.

She arcs wide, makes for a flank, her ELF lance harmlessly sparking outwards without making so much as a glancing shot, wasting power as she holds the trigger down until it grows hot under her fingers—

But notice how the shots are cutting off retreat? It would be so easy for these villains to make repeated swoops against the Plousios, to fade back into the stars as soon as Mosiac’s knights bare their teeth. No. Ember is a cunning sheepdog, and it doesn’t matter that she will most likely have to be towed back to the Plousios.

For already the other knights set their lances and charge forward into the absolute zone.

[8 to Keep Them Busy.]

So, you may not know this, but Dyssia really likes puzzles.

(Okay, you probably realized, but still.)

But it. It has to be the right kind of puzzle, if that makes sense? She's been presented with puzzles before--by some servitor or tutor or other who she's ashamed she doesn't remember the name of--where the goal of the puzzle was to figure out, from first principles, the rules of the puzzle by trial and error. Is this the solution? No. Well, how about this? Okay, yes, that works, and what does that mean the rule of the puzzle is? Shall we do another puzzle so you can solidify your grasp of the rules of the puzzle?

And it's fun, for, you know, about as long as it takes for multiple mechanics to enter the puzzle. That's the point when, whoops, sorry, all the lessons you learned about the previous puzzle mechanics no longer apply, and you're back to square one of staring blankly at a puzzle while questioning what you're doing with your life, and plugging in random solutions in the hopes that somehow it'll yield paydirt, and then having to go back and remember what the solution was so you can figure out what the new rules are, and--

Give her a puzzle where the rules are known, and explained. Give her the tools for success. And then you're free to add more mechanics, more complexity. Show her how they interact with the first. Drip-feed new mechanics in until the puzzle is a mess of thirty different interacting sets of rules, infinitely but--and this is the important part--understandably complex.

Dyssia's in heaven. She understands this game, knows how to play it, and all she has to do is keep track of a thousand different pieces all moving at the same time, while also keeping track of her own umbilical, those of her partners, and the way that her movements will whiplash the cords and cables to and fro, sending herself and others careening like pinballs in a blender.

The plover's been modified, can you tell? Some considerate servitor has emptied it out, hollowed out space, made cubbies and nests to fit an additional twenty feet of tail. It feels cozy, almost? Like being wrapped in a full-body hug, caressing and embracing from all directions. Insulation and padding both, turning the screech of howling metal and screeching engine to purrs.

Ember soars ahead of her--above her?--elegant and graceful, while Dyssia guards the cables, one long, soaring, whiplike, one stout, restrained, protected. It's a dance where one partner must mind and counter the consequences of five seconds into the future.

And Dyssia is ready--ready!--when the time comes for the reversal. For when the swarm, seeing the pattern, turns to strike, and she is not where they seek. When the time comes to surge ahead, spinning around each other's cables like a whip, like a trebuchet, to bowl into the center of the swarm, and--

[Finish with Courage: 1, 1, +1. 3.]

And it occurs to her, as the swarm closes around her, that she doesn't have the benefit of trial and error in this puzzle.

Mosaic!

"Yes," said Hera. "It is. It is your fault when they look away. It is your fault when they fall. It is your inadequacy when they find happiness and purpose outside you, your failure when they come home with shared stories, and proof that you are unworthy of love when they love another. And this pathetic wretchedness will boil inside you, no matter your exterior glory, no matter the praise and reassurance you receive. The adoration of millions will feel as nothing compared to the loss of one, because the loss of one will reveal what the millions could not see."

She looked out at the polychromatic black. "To wear the regalia of control. To be unable to control the things that matter. It's enough to make you want to murder a child."

She sighed, gently stroking the ox's nose. "In the end, I never escaped my father. I couldn't, not like Zeus. His was the form my anger took when it reached the breaking point. And you? Your parents were monsters too, in their own ways - the Emperor and the Assassin. The anger they left you with sleeps inside you still, though the Lethe washed it away."

She offers her hand, delicate beneath the jewels. "I cannot tell you how to overcome your anger. But I can show you the shapes that will inspire it when it comes."

Ember!

The storm descends. It is a miracle you survived.

You are far from the ship, your tether is severed, and the primary defense you have against the flock all about you is the cloud of frozen debris from those you have already dispatched. You are boxed in; they cannot come in, and you cannot come out.

From your vantage, you see the Reactor Sphere deploy.

Azura spaceships are modular, orrerys of spheres, different platforms for weapons, shields and armour. What comes now is an aspect of the Slitted; a secondary reactor that was close enough to a gravitation catapult to be launched at ultra high speed out to this deep space engagement. This far from a gravity well it maneuvers like a coral reef but it doesn't need to - all it needs to do is provide the tethers to empower the flock to engage in close range battle with your Knights. In fact, already plovers fly out with cable spools to revivify enemies already disabled.

This is the target. But how to escape the trap? How to strike?

Dyssia!

You land a direct ELF strike on the system defense Plover. It doesn't flinch. Too late you see the tether - too late you see the support reactor.

They changed the rules of the puzzle on you.

Enemies that should be disabled light you up, blasting you from every side. Your tether is cut and the Plover jolts cold and still. You can see whirling lights as the Knights try to reattach you but they are far away.

Still, though, just because your machine is disabled doesn't mean you are. A Knight of the Publica, unarmed and dismounted, is meant to be the match for any Plover. Azura Doctrine would state that you would be the most valuable captive and most dangerous enemy, but you fought in an unmarked and ancient engine from the human empire and so the servitors here overlook you.

Dolce!

20022 looks askance. "Why, yes. You don't know the Kneel Before The Victor Prayer? It's standard issue in the Service, a prayer to Mars that is answered with knowledge of how a particular battle concluded. Invaluable, really, it's very important to have things ready for a new incoming administration. I was going through it on the way here, and frankly it's a disaster - the Crystal Knight humiliated," he said this with an especially neutral expression, "the Slitted critically damaged, the Imperial warship escaped with a crew full of rogue servitors, the whole population of Beri. This is a regional issue now."

Despite the tutting and shaking of his head, there was the subtle impression that 20022 was pleased. Not at the escape, but because the escape meant he had license to get off Beri.

"Naturally, the Regional Director for Genetic Stability is Biomancer-General Liquid Bronze," he said. "A colourful figure, hero of the Avatara War. He's a rising star in the Skies, especially after the Pix fiasco unseated his main rivals. You'll like him."

"My, my parents? The Lethe? But I. I don't understand, I!"

Mosaic's stomach turns to ice. A moment later it disappears entirely with a horrible swooping sensation, as if she'd suddenly been dropped off a cliff. She tumbles head over tail into the blackness beyond the hangar, spinning so fast the colors of the room melt into a single into a single indistinguishable blob that is something like the color red, and something like mist and the vague shape of what dreams maybe look like. It feels as though her ribs are going to implode from the stress of it all. She cannot breathe. She is hyperventilating. She is spinning, spinning, spinning, hurtling faster and faster and the air is every smell at once but also none at all and--

She lowers her head, and looks at the ground. She has not moved a single pace. Her knees have not even buckled. Her muscles ache and whine as though she'd run the length of the ship and back again, except... none of the rest of her agrees. Her lungs do not sting with the pleasant exertion of a sprint. Her fur is smooth and her dress is pristine, not a thread out of place. There is no sense of accomplishment, no adrenal rush, no happy tiredness that comes from the use of her great strength. She is pristine. She is the height of decorum. She is

hollow.

"I had... always hoped. I-- my first memory is of a kiss, and then a breath of air that I'd never tasted before. So I'd, I'd hoped that meant I was as young as my memories. A statue brought to life, maybe, or since everyone always calls me a demigod maybe one of your children built me out of, of, feathers and bones and a, a..."

She falters. Her breath hitches, and to her surprise she feels a spot of wetness rolling down her cheek. She lifts a hand to wipe it away, only to find her fingers have curled in toward her palm and pressed her claws against her own flesh. She pries them open with great effort, and by the time she is able to tend to her tears they have multiplied five fold.

"I think I hate her," she says while looking at the goddess, "This child of monsters. The woman who washed herself clean to make me. How could she have thrown herself away like that?! I shouldn't exist at all! A child of privilege and still! She! Couldn't she get anyone to lover her? She's the reason my heart tears itself in half every time Ember leaves to be with her pack. Or the ship. She's the reason everyone's smallest triumphs feel like rocks scraped over my skin. She... She was a coward. And a bitch. I hope she's dead. I hope I'm all that's left of her."

Her hand trembles as she reaches for the goddess' outstretched fingers, but when they touch she stops as if commanded. Mosaic's grip is more gentle than the kiss of a spring rain on the petals of the flower. She deftly places her fingertips around the jewels and does not disturb their arrangement even one bit. She holds without squeezing. And she begs without speaking.

"I'm sorry. It's wrongheaded and weak to expect that every time a god blesses you with their presence you will be taught something nice. I just, I don't want to be a monster. Even if one is part of me. Isn't that why someone gave me my name? I... please, tell me. Tell me what it looks like. I'm so afraid. I'm so scared, Lady Hera, but I don't..."

With effort, Mosaic chokes a sob down to nothing. She breathes in deep, and releases it in a slow, controlled stream.

"I don't want to end up the way she did."